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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Breaking the Cycle of Poverty

Lowell Business Woman and City Council Member Franky D. Descoteaux is on "City Life" as I type and is talking about breaking the cycle of teenage pregnancy and poverty by having a system that better coordinates individual as they are moved from one silo to another, each silo taking care of one particular aspect of this individuals problem.  As she notes, a pregnant teeenager in poverty, if she has a daughter, is likely to see that daughter pregnant and in poverty a few years into the future.

Councilwoman Franky Descoteaux acknowledges that there will always be poverty.  But, she cites as an example of success the Harlem Children's Zone program, which works to try and break the cycle of poverty and help more children, as they grow up, move up and out of poverty.  Break the cycle and avoid having to pay different governmental bills later on, as those children grow into adulthood.

Ms Descoteaux is right to be asking about how we can move from a silo like approach and move on to a more "whole of person" approach.  Notwithstanding Host George Anthes' skepticism about the possibility of progress, these questions need to be asked again and again, until the walls come tumbling down.  I am glad to see Ms Descoteaux asking those questions and I hope she keeps it up, until some of those walls crack and then fall.

Regards  —  Cliff

4 comments:

Renee said...

Cliff, I going to step up and say, The problem is teen pregnancy is ultimately a fatherless issues, not necessarily a pregnancy issue.

If you look at out of wedlock rates, most of them are in their 20s now. Most of the children I know who deal with poverty do not come from the 'teen mom' but rather children born from unstable relationships, and the dad is out of the picture within a few years.

I know many older couples who got pregnant as teens/early 20s, that fact was they were a couple and that couple came from stable families themselves. If not married, eventually do. Just like couples who get pregnant in their late 20/early 30s, their families are there to 'shower gifts' and help out. Extended families help support the stresses of having children. If half of your kin isn't there to help, and the other half resents you for being pregnant, of course these children and mothers are more prone to stress and poverty.

Councilor Descoteaux is right there is a cycle of poverty, but poverty is connected to an absent father not necessarily a neglectful young mother.

Sorry to sound so defensive, but teen moms are just an easy target because in fact they are most vulnerable in our society. It usually a battle cry from the right, who blame welfare for their taxes.

No we can't force people to marry, and no we 'can't preach abstinence', but the bar has been lowered to such a point in how we conduct ourselves in sexual relations what did we expect?

Teen pregnancy will always exist. The concept of being a teenager is only 100 years old. Puberty is biological as a younger teenager, and as women begin to ovulate naturally we will explore our sexual options. If no good options are present, such enter into a healthy committed relationship, then we will settle for what we know pa emotionless hook-ups or pathetic crushes on literary stories about male vampires.


Just saying lets attack the poverty, that the problem, not the pregnancy (mother and child).

Renee said...

Cliff,

Today from Science Daily

"Couples Who Delay Having Sex Get Benefits Later, Study Suggests"

""Most research on the topic is focused on individuals' experiences and not the timing within a relationship," said lead study author Dean Busby, a professor in Brigham Young University's School of Family Life.

"There's more to a relationship than sex, but we did find that those who waited longer were happier with the sexual aspect of their relationship," Busby added. >"I think it's because they've learned to talk and have the skills to work with issues that come up." Really important for cooperative child rearing!

Sociologist Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas at Austin, who was not involved with this research, read the study and shared his take on the findings.

"Couples who hit the honeymoon too early -- that is, prioritize sex promptly at the outset of a relationship -- often find their relationships underdeveloped when it comes to the qualities that make relationships stable and spouses reliable and trustworthy," said Regnerus, author of Premarital Sex in America, a book forthcoming from Oxford University Press."

C R Krieger said...

I agree that the teenage pregnancy rate is dropping, but it isn't dropping fast enough or far enough.  Poverty is a serious problem in this nation and it is not only hurting those caught in its clutches, but also the rest of us, or most of the rest of us.

I think that in fact, those dreaded "Middle Class" values are what are needed to help fix this.  That and a consensus that no one gets a free ride—but I repeat myself.  However, everyone gets a hand up.

Regards  —  Cliff

Renee said...

I realize people think I'm off radar on stuff, but I don't have a problem with teens having babies. Biologically individuals ages 14-19 are adults, getting pregnant isn't the problem. It's society rejection of it.

Ultimately my argument dropping the teen birth rate goes against nature, those years are when we are suppose to naturally become adults instead we withhold from that.

A society that expects schooling until 25 with massive debt and little possibility of marriage or children until 30-35. Now that's really freakish.


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There seems to be no flexibility in how our society functions, for example the low fertility rates in highly educated Jewish women.

"In Jewish families, it’s “education, education, education,” she said. “But nobody told me that college might be a good time to meet a nice Jewish boy.”

The general track of Suissa’s life is not unusual among Jewish American women. As a group, they’re highly educated—a fact demographers say contributes to their relatively low fertility rates."

"
The number of childless Jewish women in their early 30s is 54 percent, compared to 28 percent for American women in general, according to the most recent National Jewish Population Survey.

The survey also shows about 5 percent of American Jewish households with children include adopted children, compared to the national rate of 3.7 percent. But unlike Americans in general, the survey notes, Jewish Americans are not having enough children to replace themselves."

I recently mentioned over at Dick Howe's blog, that we have great results in producing educated students here in Massachusetts, the problem is that we can't 'reproduce' them. To get the knowledge, requires the efforts of two full time wage earners and those resources going to fewer children. While I'm fortunate to live in Massachusetts, we have children in a incredibly inefficient manner.

If Massachusetts was truly innovative, we could create a more stable family life for younger adults by letting teenagers have more flexibility in their education and work. Teens could take responsibility, but we took away all of their ability to do so.